The colourful town of Juifen is the perfect side-trip from Taipei, set in the mountains of north east Taiwan. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up realising we were only 100 meters from our stop so we quickly buzzed the bell, grabbed our bags and hopped off the bus directly into torrential rainfall….
Category: Asia
Earthquakes, flower festivals and temples | Taichung, Taiwan
It was time for us to leave the east coast of Taiwan and explore a bit of the west and to get there we needed to catch a couple of trains. We could of made it there in a few hours by catching the high speed railway that can travel up to 330kph but we…
Wild swimming in Taiwan’s clearest rivers
Craig woke me up at around 1am saying “we just had an earthquake!!” I was fast asleep and didn’t feel it but Craig felt the room shake for just a few seconds. Our phones had emergency messages on them from the government warning us about the earthquake and to take cover. It was 5.1 on…
Exploring Taroko Gorge | Taiwan
Hualien sits on the east coast of Taiwan, set on the shores of the bright blue pacific ocean and backed by forested mountains. Just an hour bus ride away is Taroko Gorge, a place high on my list for Taiwan. We arrived in Hualien by train and took our first afternoon easy with a stroll…
First impressions of Taiwan | Hot spring hotel in Jiaoxi
Taiwan is home to 260 summits over 3000m, more than 50% of the land is covered in vegetation, remote hot springs can be found beside raging rivers and there’s endless beaches with great surf…need I say more? It’s been on our list of places to visit for a few years and now it’s finally time…
Searching for the best beaches in Thailand
We delayed our visit to Thailand after realising the weather looked appalling and the monsoon season was lingering, causing flooding, landslides and a state of emergency…yet a month later the forecast was still predicting days of heavy rain. We didn’t want to wait any longer so we risked it and flew to Phuket. Less than…
Searching for wild rhinos and tigers in Chitwan National Park | Nepal
We visited Chitwan National Park 10 years ago and loved the experience of hiking in search of wildlife so we decided to return and try our luck at spotting a Bengal Tiger this time. Rhinos are the main attraction in the park with almost 700 of them roaming the forest and grasslands. Along with the…
Top tips and prices for hiking Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal
In late October 2022 we spent 9 days independently hiking the Annapurna Base Camp trail (ABC) with the add-on of Poon Hill. I kept track of all of our expenses which I will share below along with tips for the trek. FIRST THINGS FIRST, INSURANCE If you’re travelling abroad you should already have some sort…
Hiking for 9 days to Annapurna Base Camp via Poon Hill | Nepal
We spent 9 days hiking to Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal so we could stand beneath some of the worlds highest mountains. We opted to hike the route independently, without a guide or porter after our previous disaster with a porter ten years ago who we basically had to fire because he was so slow…
From Africa to Nepal | A crazy last minute decision
We made a bit of a crazy decision. After our volunteering position in Zimbabwe turned from three weeks to one we had to basically change all our plans. We’d intended on spending a couple weeks volunteering in Botswana and then Namibia but seeing how challenging the construction jobs were in the heat and knowing how…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 